Editorial: Reject the stale map in favor of a fresh start

Friday

Apr 5, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Objections this week to proposed new district boundaries for the Orange County Legislature were very clear and very late. Complaints that the map violates the letter and the spirit of the federal Voting Rights Act leave little time for any adjustment.

Objections this week to proposed new district boundaries for the Orange County Legislature were very clear and very late. Complaints that the map violates the letter and the spirit of the federal Voting Rights Act leave little time for any adjustment.

And that's just what Republican leaders in Goshen want, an excuse to say that they would love to take all of this into consideration but that they have run out of time.

Legislators have to vote today on the flawed and inequitable plan they have before them or go back to the beginning, allowing all incumbents who choose to run and any challengers to face off within the existing 21 district boundaries, then having the winners spend the next year coming up with a new map and holding another election.

Well, that's exactly what they should do. They should reject the slightly improved version of the original map and let voters have their say in November, basing decisions on this and the other major issues yet to be resolved.

The price Orange County will pay for a special election in 2014 will be measured in dollars. The price it will pay for allowing this travesty to proceed and putting these boundaries in place for a decade to come is much greater and more than the county can afford.

We have learned many lessons in hardball politics over the past two years. If the county executive had had his way, the obedient majority on the Legislature would have already sold the Valley View Nursing Home and torn down the Government Center. But a few courageous legislators and a few thousand informed and engaged voters in special elections found ways to fight back.

There is only one reason why the objections that came up this week and all the others that have been so dominant since the proposed map came out were not part of the process leading to the new boundaries. That's because Chairman Michael Pillmeier and his hand-picked mapmaker, Legislator Katie Bonelli, did not want to hear them.

They could have held hearings. They could have invited demographers and neutral experts into the process. Gerald Benjamin, the most respected and informed expert on redistricting in the state, lives only a few miles away in Ulster County. But they did not want to hear from him or anyone else.

Pillmeier has shown some signs of late that he understands how the Legislature should work. He has abandoned his earlier practice of delivering votes for the county executive's schemes on demand and instead been diligent in asserting some independence. He has helped hold off bad choices on Valley View and the Government Center until the county can make decisions based on complete and reliable information. That is a legacy he can be proud of as he leaves the job having announced that he will not run again.

Rejecting the map he ordered will add to that legacy. Presiding over a vote to approve this unfair plan will put a different ending on his political career, one that makes it clear that he went out the door the way he came in, following orders from above.